Residential investors trade £10m on crowdfunding platform

In total, £40m of shares in buy-to-let properties have been invested and traded through the platform, and during the past 12 months the number of its investors has doubled to more than 8,600.

Investors can withdraw their cash without the properties needing to be sold by selling their holdings on the platform’s designated secondary market. In total £10m has now been sold in that way, though Property Partner said much of that had then been reinvested in other properties.

The FCA-regulated online investment platform enables anyone to buy shares in individual or blocks of properties, just as they can in company stocks. They then receive a monthly rental income. Since launch, £800,000 worth of dividends has been returned to investors.

After five years, Property Partner also gives all investors the option to exit at market value.

So far, it has listed 61 investment opportunities, containing 277 buy-to-let properties, ranging from its first, a two-bedroom house in Croydon, to luxury flats in Whitechapel and institutional-grade investment blocks in Lincolnshire and Eastbourne, plus new blocks of apartments in the West Midlands and Hertfordshire.

Last year it raised more than £430,000 in 66 seconds to fund a property in Hanwell, West London.

Commenting on the company’s £10m milestone, founder and chief executive Dan Gandesha said: “Our vision has always been to enable a more democratic way of investing in residential property. Anyone can now easily buy shares online in multiple flats and houses – once the exclusive preserve of big institutions and the very wealthy.

“But investors also have a viable exit on our resale market where they can trade their shares far more quickly than if they owned the properties outright. Interestingly, while many traditional property funds suspended trading immediately following the Brexit vote, we were still open for business.”

He added that changes to the buy-to-let market mean traditional investments are becoming less lucrative. “Focusing on core functions, we’re now scaling the business rapidly as more people are waking up to the fact that the financial rewards of traditional buy-to-let are getting slimmer, with profits increasingly squeezed due to recent tax changes and tighter lending criteria. Savers are also suffering with negligible returns on high street bank accounts.”